Launching a campaign of conquest against Ukraine, Russia has committed the most serious assault on the democratic international order since the end of the Second World War. The United States must rally the world in response to Vladimir Putin’s outrage. Four major steps should be taken immediately.
First, the Biden administration should introduce massive sanctions on the Russian economy and military. This should include sanctions against all nations that purchase Russian military equipment, sanctions against Russia’s energy export sector and companies that service it (Russia lacks sufficient indigenous capacity), and a full ban of Russian banks from the SWIFT banking system, which will deny them access to Western financial markets.
Second, the U.S. must impose punishing sanctions on the wealthy oligarchs who provide Putin with his patronage networks. These are men who, in return for their effective monopolies, give Putin a cut of their billions, which funds his security apparatus and foreign agents. This effort cannot be half-hearted. It must include, for example, Alisher Usmanov and Roman Abramovich, both of whom retain residences and own soccer clubs in England. The U.S. assets of all Russian oligarchs should be seized. Their private bank accounts in the West, even where hidden with corporate structures, must be frozen. The residential and educational visas of their children must be revoked.
If European allies are unwilling to support these efforts, the U.S. should force their multinational corporations to choose between servicing the oligarchs or access to the U.S. economy.
Third, the Biden administration should unleash the U.S. energy export market in order to check skyrocketing energy prices and ease Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas exports. Regulations should be cut, export grants expedited, and domestic extraction of natural gas expanded. The time has now come for Europe to abandon dramatically and systemically the delusion that Russia under Putin can be an energy partner. Recent decisions by France to restart its nuclear energy program, and by Germany to suspend the Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline, are welcome. But both efforts must be permanent.
Fourth, the U.S. must make explicit that what Russia is doing is simply unacceptable. Putin’s justification, that his conquest is intended to rid Ukraine of Nazis, is a deception, not a mere delusion. Moral clarity is needed.
As the leader of the free world, the U.S. must rally its allies in support of the noble ideals of democracy and a rules-based international order. The Ukrainian people must find in Joe Biden unflinching support, and Putin must be made to understand that he is all alone. He has made a most grievous error, and he must rescind his claims on Ukraine.
